Hey! Can't You Guys Get Along?

I was visiting a church member a few days ago who has six hummingbird feeders under her carport. At the end of my visit, we chatted as I took some video of the "drama of survival" in slow motion. (Note: the resolution stinks because the camera (a point-and-shoot wonder, the Panasonic Lumix ZS20) takes 220 pics a second to catch the action. All this to say, DON'T view it in FULLSCREEN...just IMAGINE it in fullscreen. So, go ahead, and watch the drama. If you're in a hurry, move ahead to the four minute mark for the climactic battle! 

The point: these birds remind me of how senseless it is when Christians fight each other in ways that do not bring Christ glory. Those little, and I mean little birds are so territorial and aggressive, like, well.... like some of us. If their brains were bigger (they have to be tiny to fit in those little bird skulls), I wonder if they would get tired of all the fluttering, and diving, and squawking, and pecking that characterizes so much of their lives. One article describes them as more Tasmanian Devils than Tinker Bells.  They don't pause to thank their great feeder provider; resting in the fact that season after season, their needs are being met by some massive creature who looks menacing, but is not. Instead of living in gratitude, they are fighting and fussing to defend their natural, powerful state of THIS IS MINE! Hey, it's nature, right?

Sure it is, even with humans, but our human nature has an alternative to a lifetime of fighting and fussing and protecting one's territory. That alternative is to get serious about following Christ, and being transformed from the inside out BEFORE you go and attack someone else for invading your space. 

Paul writes in Romans 12:1,2: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." 

Before you go pecking somebody's eye out because they are threatening your territory, maybe you should pause and ask Father if there is anything in your thinking patterns that needs renewing. Surely with a brain as big as yours, there are SOME thoughts that need to be replaced and renewed. So stop pecking and squawking and fighting; embrace the renewed life Christ seeks to give you every day!